Monday, April 21, 2014

Back to the future for Team Gushue

No big surprised here but Brad Gushue announced today that Mark Nichols, late of the Jeff Stoughton rink, is heading home to re-join his gold-medal winning skip.

Gushue made the announcement on the team's Facebook account:

"I am very pleased to announce the return of Mark Nichols to our team. It will be great to be teammates once again, as Mark brings experience and talent that will certainly benefit our team as a whole." said Brad Gushue. “Really looking forward to having a world class player like Mark join our team next season,” added Geoff Walker.Mark Nichols, originally from Labrador City, played with Brad Gushue from 1998 to 2011. Having achieved a number of successes including winning a Canadian and World Junior Championship in 2001, and most notably winning the Gold Medal for Canada at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy."I am looking forward to joining Team Gushue," said Mark Nichols. "I’m excited to be returning home, and excited to help the guys achieve our goal of winning a Brier and return to the Olympics. They have shown they are a world class team and I hope to build on the success they have had over the last three years.”

With Nichols stepping in, Adam Casey becomes the odd man out. The new lineup will be Gushue, Nichols at third, Brett Gallant playing second and lead Geoff Walker.

He got the send off from his former skipper:

“We want to thank Adam for his hard work and dedication to the team over the past three years,” said Brad Gushue.